Well quite. You would think that coming top of your group means avoiding the big boys and having a nice free pass to the final by the way some are reacting.

Well, we could have won the group and got drawn against Bayern or Real Madrid. It is not as simple as suggesting we would have got Shaktar. I also don't see how Conte takes the blame for 3 golden chances we had at 1-1 that we didn't take.

How is it any worse than before? If we had an easy draw in the last 16 then had to play Barca, how are we worse off? You could argue if we aren't going to win it, best go out now rather than having 2 more fixtures for our small squad. We have to play these sides eventually. If we were to get through v Barca, and with Real or PSG going out, the competition might look a little different.

Why is the CL a write off now? We are in the the premier football competition yet people start moaning when we play one of the big boys. What did you expect? This is what we are in it for. If you only want to play the minnows then start supporting Exeter or something.

It's a write-off because we'll play one of the stand-out two favourites to win the whole thing. Some thing we could have avoided quite easily if we had a manager that was, you know, showing an interest to win games we really should be winning.

Given that our number one priority is to finish with a top 4 in the PL, everything else is second in my view. Imagine if we beat Barca, put out weakened sides against United and City and end up going out in the CL quarters and miss out on a top four what have we achieved? Sweet **** all is what. Plus the ramification of that would be yet another summer with not one, but two hands tied behiond our backs.

Where we are right now, a top four is more important than any title we can win next year (bar the CL of course).

4 hours ago, Martin1905 said:

It's not a good draw at all. We really should have won the group and would have if we set up properly against Athletico. They were rubbish, had nothing to play for and were absolutely no threat going forward. Instead of trying to win the game which we really needed to we set up over cautiously and it cost us.

The only thing I would say is that we have done well against them in the past and we are the last team they would have wanted to be drawn against.

It's a disastrous draw and we should have avoided it.

When we have done well against them in the past we had a solid defensive team that could still create and score goals. Now we are a defensive side who can't keep a clean sheet even if our lives depended on it and have two regulars that can score on a semi-consistent basis.

Quite a different situation I reckon. Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but then again that accusation was levelled at me already in May when I started to harp on about the imminent squad disaster we were facing. We had quite a few posters on here who didn't realise how bad it was until a minute after the window closed. Some have just started to realise how ****ed up our squad is.

9 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

Well quite. You would think that coming top of your group means avoiding the big boys and having a nice free pass to the final by the way some are reacting.

Well, we could have won the group and got drawn against Bayern or Real Madrid. It is not as simple as suggesting we would have got Shaktar. I also don't see how Conte takes the blame for 3 golden chances we had at 1-1 that we didn't take.

How is it any worse than before? If we had an easy draw in the last 16 then had to play Barca, how are we worse off? You could argue if we aren't going to win it, best go out now rather than having 2 more fixtures for our small squad. We have to play these sides eventually. If we were to get through v Barca, and with Real or PSG going out, the competition might look a little different.

Finishing second, we could have faced far easier teams than what we ended up doing. Of course, finishing second is no guarantee we would have avoided some of the big boys. Juve, Real and Bayern would still have been possibilities. But out of the draw we got, I can't come up with a worse scneario than Barca.

If we aren't going to win the CL we still need to think about our CL coefficient for future tournaments. Remember we don't have any coefficient points for the 2016-17 season at all and yet another CL tournament with an early exit will put us under even more pressure in future tournaments as we will face tougher opposition due to our lower ranking.

Gone are the golden 2004-2012 years where we were always in the top five of european teams. Further highlighting how quickly we have fallen behind the rest and the long way back we are facing.

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I watch Barca play quite a lot and they are far more reliant on Messi right now than they ever have been. Seriously, its no longer Puyol, Pique, Alves, Iniesta, Xavi, Henry, Eto'o/Villa, Messi, Ronaldinho etc to worry about. Besides Messi and Suarez, there are very few people in there to genuinely worry about.

They are a solid side of course... just not the same calibre as the teams we faced before. I reckon we can advance easier than you would have expected of a Chelsea-Barca tie from years gone by. And let's not forget either that we played superbly well in some key games this season against big sides like Atleti away, United at home and we were far better than Liverpool at Anfield too. I dont think that we should worry too much.

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Finishing second, we could have faced far easier teams than what we ended up doing. Of course, finishing second is no guarantee we would have avoided some of the big boys. Juve, Real and Bayern would still have been possibilities. But out of the draw we got, I can't come up with a worse scneario than Barca.

If we aren't going to win the CL we still need to think about our CL coefficient for future tournaments. Remember we don't have any coefficient points for the 2016-17 season at all and yet another CL tournament with an early exit will put us under even more pressure in future tournaments as we will face tougher opposition due to our lower ranking.

Gone are the golden 2004-2012 years where we were always in the top five of european teams. Further highlighting how quickly we have fallen behind the rest and the long way back we are facing.

Good points, although I think PSG are currently more dangerous than Barca, but it is a close thing.

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Am I the only one not peed off with drawing Barcelona. I love these big nights against the elite teams. If we worry about playing them then we are no better than the spuds or the dippers who struggle to get in the bloody competition then put out a weak team because they are worried about getting in the same competition next year.

Come on you Blues and at least go out against a top team rather than the likes of Basel. Except that I reckon we've got a chance against them.

Of course I'll be reminded again and again about our 8 defenders and Conte's preference for not attacking but I got bored reading that over and over and over. I'm not saying that some of those views don't hold water but ...........aghghghgh

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When we have done well against them in the past we had a solid defensive team that could still create and score goals. Now we are a defensive side who can't keep a clean sheet even if our lives depended on it and have two regulars that can score on a semi-consistent basis

Odd statement this Dave.

We played 5 games in November and 4 of them we kept clean sheets. The only goal we conceded in the entire month was at Anfield.

Since then, we’ve conceded a few but again, one of those was against Athletico and it’s still only 4 goals conceded in our last 8 games which considering the teams we’ve played is pretty phenomenal tbh.

Our defence definitely isn’t our worry. Our biggest problem very clearly is scoring enough goals. I know people argue that our reliance on Hazard and Morata is no different to Lampard & Drogba but I’d argue it is. Firstly, the latter were more consistent, (appreciate its only Morata’s first season) but also In those team there were still lots of others that would more than chip in.

Right now, if a team can keep Hazard and Morata quiet, they’ll probably get something out of the game. Previously you’ve had Terry, Ivanovic, Ballack, Essien, Robben, Duff, Malouda or Anelka to try and keep quiet.

Targets for January have to include a more explosive LWB, (Sandro?), another Striker (whilst keeping Michy), I’d be pretty happy with Charlie Austin, and a number 8 who can score goals - someone like KDB ironically.

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Am I the only one not peed off with drawing Barcelona. I love these big nights against the elite teams. If we worry about playing them then we are no better than the spuds or the dippers who struggle to get in the bloody competition then put out a weak team because they are worried about getting in the same competition next year.

I suppose that upside is that if we win - or better they only go through on some scandalous reffing decision, we can talk about that for rest of the season.

On 12/12/2017 at 1:43 PM, Sleeping Dave said:

When we have done well against them in the past we had a solid defensive team that could still create and score goals. Now we are a defensive side who can't keep a clean sheet even if our lives depended on it and have two regulars that can score on a semi-consistent basis.

Quite, playing 2 men up and 8 at the back is a recipe for disaster against Barca.
Of course as Rob B says, we can play proper football, but yesterday apart Conte appears to have given up on that.

20 hours ago, Rob B said:

We played 5 games in November and 4 of them we kept clean sheets. The only goal we conceded in the entire month was at Anfield.

Indeed. looking at November as well as December does mean there are 2 games where we have failed to concede with 532 and two where we have conceded with 523 (both last minute goals when we were 2 or 3 up).
Mind you if you look at October, and the Watford game or the Roma away game, 532 has looked terrible, at least to the point the cavalry came on.